Trapped
by purplehershey
Summary: Set after Going Home, Regina is in the Enchanted Forest and desperate to get Henry back. She becomes aware of a mirror that can allow this chance, but after willing her son to come back to her, she is surprised by the appearance of someone else. Swan Queen.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This takes place after the episode Going Home in the Enchanted Forest. Major plot change: Zelena has not taken over Regina's castle. In fact, Zelena has not been introduced at all.**

**While it may seem "canonical" at first, I'm sure I'll make it plenty AU, as I usually do. I'm really excited about this, and while I can't promise as fast updates (and by fast I mean daily) as I have done for some of my other stories, I'll be updating steadily and reliably. Let's see where this goes :)**

**Warning: There is a brief and sudden scene of self-harm, but its relatively short and doesn't divulge deeply. Still, I know some people do prefer warnings for those types of things. **

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><p>Regina sat stiffly at her wooden armoire as she looked blankly her own reflection. Her eyes trailed over the elaborate black dress that crushing her abdomen to the point that she was convinced any minute she would hear the sound of her own rib crack.<p>

She watched her own hand snake up to her chest where an elaborate diamond necklace lay, the center pendant lying in the valley of her cleavage. Her hand delicately cradled the sparkling diamond for a few seconds before her face twisted into displeasure. She scowled audibly and tightened her fist around it, the edges of the gem piercing into her palm sharply. But in response to the pain that was snaking up into each of her fingers, she only clutched harder.

Her lifeless eyes watched herself squeeze tighter and tighter, warm liquid eventually leaking from her palm. With a flick of her brown orbs, she watched the blood trickle down her forearm slowly, like drops of rain on a window.

"What are you doing?" Snow's voice rang out from behind Regina. The noise did nothing to deter Regina's self-harming action though, for her hand continued to tighten, her eyes still piercingly detached.

"Regina!" Snow screeched as she raced up to Regina and pulled her hand back from the pendant. Cradling the injured hand in her own, Snow inspected the blood-coated wounds on Regina's soft flesh.

It was the initiation of contact that caused Regina's eyes to flicker away from their permanently zoned-out position and landed on Snow's concerned face. She looked at the younger woman surprisingly, as if she had just now realized that she wasn't alone in the room. She simply watched as Snow grabbed a cloth and frantically blot at her hand, feeling it sting and burn when water was poured on it.

"What were you doing?" Snow asked moments later, her voice calmer now. She kept her eyes down, trained on Regina's hand as she continued to work at cleaning it.

"I was…" Regina trailed off, she didn't even really remember what she was doing. The only thing she remembered was what she had been thinking. Snow waited patiently, but Regina's vision zoned out again, staring off into somewhere else.

"I was thinking about Henry," Regina pushed out in a weak voice. It had been exactly eighty-two days since she'd seen Henry. Eighty-two days of torture in which she had no idea if he was alive, healthy, safe. She had no way of knowing if he and Emma had even escaped the remnants of Pan's curse.

Were they off in New York living a life of their own? Roaming around Storybrooke in an effort to find all the others who had been transported back to the Enchanted Forest? She had no idea. And it was exactly that, the complete uncertainty, that had been growing and festering inside of her for exactly eighty-two days. It was exactly that, which had driven her to the point of insanity as described by her actions.

She looked back in the mirror and stared at the dark circles under her eyes as Snow went to retrieve a new bandage for her hand. When she came back with a pile of cloth that Regina, herself, had no idea she even had, Snow began to unwrap the long strip of material.

Around and around, the pixie hair woman bandaged her hand; around and around, Regina's head spun with the miserable, wretched, life she was currently living. She looked down at her pendent that still sat nestled in her chest, each corner smeared with her own blood.

Oh, how have the mighty fallen, she thought to herself.

"Your hand should be good for now, but Regina, please don't hurt yourself. It's not going to fix anything." Snow said as she stood back up and placed a hand on Regina's shoulder. Strangely enough, Regina didn't flinch. Yet again, she didn't seem to do much of anything these days, except sit at her armoire and stare into the mirror as if it was a window into another world, hopefully one with Henry in it.

"What should I do then? There's nothing I can do to get my son back. Nothing," Regina's attitude, which had started out as one of vigor and determination had waned and waned until all that was left of her was a skeleton of bitterness and a shriveled up heart that circulated more pain than blood.

"There's always something you can do. You can't give up hope...which is actually why I came here today," at the change of Snow's tone from pity to something else, Regina's ears perked up. She jerked her head away from the mirror and looked into the brunette eyes of Snow White.

Snow seemed nervous to continue on, as she should be, for what she was holding behind her back was something of great power. And while great power was the exact thing she knew Regina needed, she knew it was also something that could finish off the uncharacteristically fragile woman in front of her.

"Well, what is it?" Regina encouraged. Ever so slowly, Snow pulled a book from behind her back. It was brown, leather-bound, intricately designed with steel tendrils that snaked up the cover. The pages inside of it were thick, as if made out of animal hide, and while Snow couldn't decipher the symbols that appeared on the pages, she knew Regina would be able to.

At the sight of the book, Regina's eyes opened wide, her hands shot out in front of her and immediately wrenched it from Snow's grasp. She plopped it on her armoire unceremoniously and began leafing through it. When she got to a page that seemed to be in the exact middle of the book, she stopped. She stared at the symbols that appeared before her, even going as far to trace her fingers over a certain line of dried black ink several times.

"Where did you find this?" Regina asked suddenly and brashly; she hadn't meant for her voice to come out so harsh, but old habits die hard. Snow wrung her hands together nervously.

"It was in my bedroom."

She had been cleaning underneath her and Charming's bed yesterday and had come across the book. It had immediately looked out of place and Snow couldn't imagine ever allowing the book into her castle at any time, not before the curse, not after the curse. The cover itself looked sinister, and even holding it in order to bring it here, she felt a sense of doom and heaviness settle over her. In fact, she felt a physical sense of relief the moment Regina had taken it from her hands.

A snarl erupted from between Regina's painted lips, "Of course. Rumplestilskin would hide it in the one place he knew I would despise."

"I had a feeling it was his. Well, that it was the Dark One's..." Snow trailed off in a quiet voice. Her body was absolutely vibrating with nerves, and the fact that her sinking suspicions of the previous owner had just been confirmed only set her farther on edge.

"Regina?" Snow asked after Regina continued to flip through the pages, her hand keeping bookmark on the original page she found. Regina didn't answer.

"Regina?" Snow repeated, louder this time.

"What?" Again, with the harsher than necessary tone.

"Be careful." Snow warned in a motherly way. Regina had the urge to snort at irony of the situation, but instead just waved Snow off with an, "I will, I will."

At that, Snow hesitantly retreated to back to the doorway of Regina's room and walked out. As she closed the door behind her she hoped and prayed Regina would be level headed, calm, reasonable.

The moment Snow left the room, Regina continued to sort through the book at a pace that was anything but level-headed, calm and reasonable. After going through almost three quarters of the book, she finally found what she was looking for.

Page three hundred and twenty-two. The Magic Mirror.

She scanned over the words carefully, trailing her finger down the page as she read.

The Magic Mirror: a two way mirror that can transcend realms. One can walk into the mirror and enter a random realm out of chance, or one can be retrieved from a specific realm.

Further down the page, she searched for instructions, a chant, a secret ingredient, anything that she would need to get it to work, but there was nothing. Nothing except a history of its origins, a roughly drawn picture, and a detailed physical description.

With a loud grumble, the brunette smacked the book closed. Useless. Even when he was dead, Rumplestilskin was useless. Who doesn't write instructions to a magical device?

But in the state of delusion and heartbreak that Regina was in, she brushed off the minor obstacle and stood up sharply from the armoire that had become her permanent place of residence for the last week. She paced the floor of her room in a couple of swift steps, as she struggled to remember where the Magic Mirror Rumplestilskin had given her all those years ago was.

His original purpose had been to have her push her mother into it, banishing her to another land, but of course, that had failed. She had been so weak, then, so new. Not now though. She was willing to do whatever it took to get Henry back. She didn't care the consequences.

After pinpointing the location of the mirror in her castle, Regina flicked her manicured hand in the air, and within seconds a mirror appeared perched against the wall. It was just how she'd remembered it: tall, decorated, menacing. She stepped closer to it and ran her wounded hand along the frame of the mirror, her fingers jumping up and down with the textured surface. She had no plan, no clue how to make the mirror work, but blind with newfound hope, she forged on blindly.

"Come back to me, Henry," Regina whispered as she willed the magic inside of her to concentrate in her hand. The magic fizzled a bit, providing a slight glow on the frame of the mirror where her hand made contact, but nothing happened.

Seconds later, she pulled her hand back, her face creasing with a frown as she touched the mirror again, this time on the glass. A fizzle, a glow, and a low grunt of frustration sounded as she willed more magic and pressed harder, mumbling incantations that she made up in her head.

With each passing second of failure Regina only focused harder. Fizzles and glowing. Usless fucking fizzles and glowing, she thought to herself.

After exerting so much magic so forcefully she ripped her hand back and tumbled back into her chair at the armoire. Her body sagged in fatigue, but her eyes roared with a fire. She remained sitting for only seconds before summing what was left of her energy to grab the book of magic. Without hesitation, she opened it to her bookmarked page of three hundred and twenty-two.

Desperately, she read it again. And again. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing. Inside her anger built higher. Here she was, with a glimpse of hope, an opportunity to get her son back, and she couldn't even get the goddamn mirror to work. What was left of her magic began to pick up speed inside of her. Fueled by her rage and frustration, she felt her control slip from her grip, the magic inside of her doing what it did best: fizzling and glowing around her as she approached the mirror.

"Give. Me. My. Son." She screamed in maniacal rage. She thrust her hand hard at the mirror, hoping the force would cause the magic to transfer from her hand to the glass surface.

Surprisingly, it did. The plate of reflective material began rippling as if it were the surface on a clear body of water.

"Please," Regina whispered. She stumbled to lean on the wall but kept her hand dutifully in contact with the rippling surface. Her knees were becoming weak and her skin was paling quickly. It was as if her bones had disintegrated and replaced with gelatin, but still, her hand remained.

"I need my son."

In a movement that seemed to happen in slow motion, Regina slid to the floor as the little blood that was still circulating in her face diminished to nothing, her skiing turning nothing more than a ghastly white. She collapsed on the floor in complete exhaustion, having exerted every ounce of energy in her effort to keep the surface glowing, her magic fizzling, and her hope in tact for as long as possible.

For a moment, nothing happened and the room was still. Regina remained lifeless and passed out on the floor as the surface of the mirror continued to glow an eerie green.

It was only until a full minute later, that the mirror seemed to brighten and expand as it hurled a body through it. The body landed on the stone ground hard, with a sickening slap, sliding slightly across the floor as remnants of the powerful force behind it wore off.

The mirror slowly dimmed, becoming less green and returning to its naturally reflective, yet lackluster state. It was then, when the room had been rid of all magical properties, and replaced with nothing but the cooler than comfortable air, that that the two bodies on the floor began to simultaneously move. At first it was only twitching of the fingers, a nudge of the foot, but they were moving.

"Aghh," The body groaned as it rolled over.

Regina's eyes lurched open. She had thought she was alone. She had failed, the last thing she remembered before she passed out on the floor was that. She had failed.

Slowly, she moved her head to the side, wincing at the tight muscles that surrounded her neck, needing to know who had made that sound next to her. When she saw the mop of blonde hair that spilled across the floor, her breath caught in her throat.

"Emma?"

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><p><strong>I've got big plans guys, big plans!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

"_Emma?"_

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><p>Regina lifted her head higher off the ground to confirm her previous suspicions, the woman lying on the ground beside her was, in fact, Emma Swan.<p>

"What happened?" Emma groaned with her eyes still shut. She swept her hair away from her face roughly as her hands searched to find the ground. Once they found it, she used them to push herself up into a sitting position. Her eyes blinked opened while she stretched her neck back and forth.

The whole time, Regina remained frozen on the ground, staring at her, as she searched within herself for an explanation of why Emma was lying on the ground of her castle, in the Enchanted Forest, without Henry.

The minute Emma's eyes were fully open and focused from their previously blurry state, her jaw dropped. Regina could see tangible fear settle on her face and her green eyes darted around the medieval style castle that was constructed of catherdral-like ceilings and solid stone interior like a crazy person's.

"What the…" Emma's head jerked up to Regina and within seconds, her eyes had scanned over every inch of Regina's body. She took in the brunette's dress, her makeup, her purposefully sinister appearance. She saw the bloodied necklace, the trembling hands, the pursued lips. She looked at it all, over and over, refusing to believe what was in front of her was real.

During that moment of observation where Regina was staring at Emma and Emma was staring at Regina, everything seemed to be still, suspended in time. Except inside, both of their brains were whirling frantically. And surprisingly enough, the result they both came up with once they had time to sort out all the overstimulation was the same.

_Oh, shit._

Then, in a flash, the moment of stillness was gone, instead replaced by pure and unaltered chaos. Emma scrambled up to her feet and took quick, awkward steps backward while screaming, "what the hell? Who are you! Where am I? What did you do to me?" in one long uninterrupted puff of breathe.

At the same time Regina worked to push herself off the ground (though at a much more relaxed pace), a harder task than it should have been, since her dress had the flexibility of a wooden board and seemed to abhor any movement in general.

It took an impressively short amount of time struggling though, before Regina waved her hand over her body and replaced her black dress with a leather pants, blouse combo. She looked down and rolled her eyes at the outfit her magic had mindlessly chosen for her. Seriously, what had she been thinking when she created her Evil Queen wardrobe all those years back?

She had the urge to change into one of the business suits that Madame Mayor would have sported, but she wasn't that woman anymore either. She didn't really know who she was at this point. No outfit really seemed right.

While Regina was busy cursing her inability to decide what to wear, Emma's back thudded against the wall from her feverish and desperate backpedaling. She looked around frantically for a way out of the room and eyed a door on the other side.

Without a chance to think through her actions, she took off in a full sprint towards, passing the brunette on her way. Just before she reached it though, Regina realized her apparent prisoner was trying to escape, and with a simple flick of her hand, she locked the door. Emma reached for the knob anyway, despite hearing the telltale click, but it didn't budge an inch.

After trying and failing at twisting the knob open for longer than should have been necessary, Emma flipped around so her back was against the door. As a result of her dramatic and ever persistent survival skills, she looked around and grabbed the first thing she saw, ready to defend herself against the woman who was puffing with smoke and changing outfits with a flick of her hand. Unfortunately, that item happened to be an unlit torch made of blunt metal.

"Who the hell are you?" Emma screamed as she thrust the torch in front of her menacingly.

Regina rolled her eyes and rubbed her temples. She did not need this right now. It was enough that she had failed, yet again, at retrieving her son, but to go as far as transporting the blonde into her life had only succeeded in putting her farther on edge.

"I said who the hell are you!" Emma's forehead wrinkled and she thrust the torch farther in front of her like a sword. She even went as far as to take a bold step toward Regina. Regina raised her eyebrows, she'd never discounted the fact that Emma had courage, but taking the offensive in an unknown place with an unknown person who apparently knew magic was a new level of foolery for the blonde.

"Tell. Me. Who. You. Are." Each word evoked another step forward from Emma.

"Oh, quit playing the dashing hero and let me think for a second." Regina huffed in annoyance as she turned back toward her armoire. With a hand on Rumplestilskin's book she flipped through the pages and re-read the entry on the magic mirror. She must have been close to getting it right, if she could bring Emma here, then surely she could bring Henry. She just needed to figure out her error and try again.

Emma was never one to be quieted easily though, and so while Regina bent over the book and continued to scan through the pages, Emma leapt up behind her, and extended her arm back, ready to knock her out with the blunt end metal torch.

When the weapon was merely inches away from slamming into Regina's head, Regina growled and flicked her hand, her back still facing Emma. Emma and the torch froze, encased in a shimmering magical imprisonment. Regina turned around slowly and circled Emma.

"Could you not give me ten seconds to figure out what had gone wrong? Is that too much to ask from you?" Regina growled as she walked over to a cabinet on the other side of her room. After gather a few potions and ingredients, she returned to her armoire where Emma's form had remained frozen. Regina dumped the contents onto the wooden surface and looked at the page she had opened to in the book while she mixed and poured and stirred liquids and powders from vials of various shapes.

All the time, Emma remained frozen.

"So infuriating. Always so infuriating," Regina mumbled to herself while she spun a final vial in circles. The circle-spinning technique served to mix the memory potion as it changed from color to color.

Regina watched Emma's eyes under the shimmering magical prison. Just as it had been eighty-two eyes since she'd Henry, It had also been eighty–two days since she'd seen those eyes. And while ever single moment she'd spent with the blonde woman had been nothing less than a smatter of feelings, the last moments they had spent together were ones of understanding, peace even.

Captured by the mystery that Regina could see in Emma's irises, Regina's moving hand with the spinning vile stilled. Emma looked…so sad and it was throwing her for a loop. She had given Emma **her** happy ending. She had given her a life with Henry, an opportunity to start over. So why did she look so sad?

It wasn't until the vial of potion almost slipped from Regina's ever relaxing hand, that she tore her gaze away from Emma's. She shook her head to clear the haze that had settled upon her and focused on the task at hand. With one more spin and wave with her other hand, a small portion of the magical prison diminished, freeing only Emma's head from its frozen state.

"What did you do to me!" Emma burst out the minute her mouth was freed. She looked down at her still frozen form and her breathing began to pick up. Regina knew if her entire body had been free, she would see Emma's chest falling and rising as she hyperventilated. Emma struggled to move her arms, her legs, she struggled so hard to move anything. But it was all for nothing, because every part of her except her head was so still that it felt as though it may not be attached anymore.

Regina watched the woman sink into despair and confusion and wondered how Henry had transitioned Emma Swan into the world of magic and fairytales so smoothly all those months before. Granted, the blonde woman had kicked and screamed the entire way, but she had never looked as though she might implode a she did now.

"Drink this," Regina responded as she held up the vial with a thick black liquid in it. Emma looked down at the vial and back up at Regina.

"You seriously think I'm going to drink that?"

Regina let out a sharp breath of air and for a second she contemplated how much easier it would be to just eliminate this problem, by eliminating Emma. The Evil Queen would have done it, she told herself. She would have snapped Emma head, or taken her heart without more than a second of contemplation.

It didn't take long for reality to smack her in the face. She wasn't the Evil Queen anymore. Not even close. She was a sad, lonely woman with enough magic to destroy an entire realm, but not enough to get her son back. She could waltz around and pretend she was all knowing and powerful, but with all her evil stripped from her she knew she couldn't even take a random villagers heart anymore, not to mention her son's birth mother.

She was nothing more than a shadow of who she used to be.

Her shoulders sagged at the realization and she held up the potion once again between her two fingers.

"Just take it," Regina tried again.

"You're out of your freaking mind lady."

Regina knew she wasn't able to kill Emma, but maybe a smack around would be conducive to speeding this process up, right? Regina contemplated it, she really did, but she knew Henry wouldn't approve. _Henry._

"Where's Henry?" Regina asked. Emma's face paled.

"How do you know my son?"

"Where is he?" Regina repeated angrily, inching her face close to Emma's.

"I don't know!"

"You're lying!"

"I don't!" Emma shouted, "I was at home with him and suddenly I ended up here!" Emma's felt her face becoming warm and her heart pick up in speed as she wondered if Henry was okay.

Regina stood back up and paced back and forth. Would he be safe? Would he be confused? Alone? Does he have someone to look after him?

"Take this potion and I'll get you back to him," Regina said as she neared Emma. She shoved the vial near Emma's face. Emma turned her head so that her mouth was as far away as possible from the swirling black liquid.

"Potion? No way am I putting that in my mouth."

"I'll kill you if you don't!" Regina threatened loudly. That seemed to put Emma at a pause. She couldn't even call the brunette on a bluff. From what…powers she had already exhibited, she assumed that the other woman was very capable at killing her.

"Just….drink it!" Regina yelled again, though her voice was getting less intimidating with each coming second, instead filling with something more akin to desperation.

"Drink it!" She repeated. She felt the tears stinging at the backs of her eyes and promised herself she would keep it that way, crying now would be pathetic. She refused to let Emma Swan's stubborness be the reason that she cracked into a million shattered pieces. She had been holding it together for so long already, and while that time may have weakened her into nothing more than a shadow of an Evil Queen that did nothing but sit at her armoire, she had not completely lost it.

Sighing in defeat she hung her head. "Just drink the god damn potion if you want to see your son again," she whispered out feebly, having exhausted every other emotion she could imagine. Emma trailed her eyes over the broken woman's face, for someone who had seemed to intimidating at first, her own refusal to drink the potion had resulted in breaking the woman down until she was nothing more than a crumpled heap. And it was because of this that Emma finally gave in, something this important must have to do with more than just her death.

"Okay." Emma responded so quietly Regina had thought she misheard her. When Regina's eyes lifted to Emma's they both looked at each other in a similarly exhausted manner. Regina felt the corner of her mouth twitch slightly, knowing that if Emma's body had been free she would have shrugged her shoulders slightly as if to say, "you know, what do I have to lose?" as she always seemed to do, even when she did have something to lose.

With an extension of her arm, Regina brought the potion to Emma's lips, and this time, Emma didn't turn or purse them, but allowed them to part. Regina tipped the vile and watched as it disappeared in between Emma's thin, pink lips.

Emma swallowed once, twice, three times, until it was all gone. Pulling back, Regina watched Emma's face carefully as she knew the potion was slithering down into her stomach.

Regina didn't really know what to expect, maybe a burst of light, or a pulse of magic, but what happened instead was much more concerning. For when the black liquid of the memory potion had succeeded in infiltrating Emma's bloodstream and riding that canal up to her brain, her eyes flashed from their normal jade green, to something more of a shamrock.

It was subtle, a simple change of hue, but it told Regina that something was happening inside of Emma, something that could only be explained by magic, something that she had never seen before. After the flash of color, Emma's eyes turned dark, not with color, but with feeling. They turned so dark Regina could almost feel the internal conflict going on within the blonde woman.

"I-" Emma began to say, but stopped. She was overwhelmed by the rush of memories that were currently flooding her head. Her brain warred with reality and fought to sort out what was real and what was…fake? But it wasn't fake, it had happened, though the memories behind her were. After a few moments, when her grasp on the present, past, and future was more concrete, she tried again.

"Regina? I don't understand."

Regina leaned back and waved her hand over Emma so that the shimmering barrier disappeared and the blonde could once again move her body. Knowing Emma, the real Emma with magical powers and royalty for parents was back, she sighed she put the empty vial on the armoire. With both of her hands free, she grasped the edge of the wooden structure and hung her head in both mental and physical exhaustion.

"Neither do I."

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><p><strong>Let me know what you think :)<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Alright guys, now that I've got the ball rolling I'm going to be updating every Wednesday. Hope you like what you're reading and want to find out more :)**

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><p>Regina paced the floor, her heeled feet clicking with each step. Emma leaned against the wall with her head resting against one hand.<p>

"Start from the beginning!" Regina snapped, her head remaining forward as she hurried from one side of the room back to the other.

"I told you already. Henry and I were eating breakfast before he was supposed to go off to school. I blinked, and the next thing I knew, I was falling through this air and onto the extremely hard ground."

"But I didn't call for you!"

"Yeah, well I didn't call for you either," Emma grumbled as she took a chance to look around the place. There were very little, if any personal touches, and anything that was decoration served solely to intimidate. Emma glanced and saw a giant wall of windows, outside of them was a lovely view, if not a tad bit desolate.

She turned and saw Regina's armoire, the mirror she had apparently come hurdling through, Regina's bed, the torches. She stopped and glanced back at Regina's bed. It was huge, like a giant could sleep in it comfortably, huge. And Emma knew giants; she had fought and befriended one after all.

"Could your bed get any bigger?" Emma said as she chuckled lightly to herself.

All of the sudden, Regina's constantly moving body lurched to a stop. She snapped her head toward Emma and the minute their eyes connected, the blonde realized that she had done it. With that one unnecessary, misplaced comment, she had cracked Regina Mills.

"Did you just say 'could my bed get any bigger?'" Regina snarled as the side of her lip twitched.

"Yes?" Emma squeaked out, suddenly unsure if the woman standing in front of her was Regina or the Evil Queen.

"Our son is alone in a completely different realm, and you want to know if my bed could get any bigger?"

Emma remained still, her eyes wide as Regina advanced toward her smoothly, as if she were gliding on the air.

It wasn't that the blonde wasn't as worried about Henry as much as Regina was, she just tended to deal with it differently than the brunette. Regina paced and snapped and became an overall bitch when the safety of her son was concerned; Emma tended to shove her worry deep within her. There was also humor. When Emma Swan was bothered, worried, deeply and irreversibly hurting, she tended to resort to humor. It was an unfortunate curse.

"Regina, I-"

"Let me make this clear Miss Swan, I did not want you to come through the mirror. I wanted my son."

"Yes, I know but-"

"No. You don't get to talk. You don't get to say anything after that comment. It seems I can only rely on myself to keep Henry out of harms way." Emma watched Regina as she yet agin, reamed her out for not taking care of their son.

"You're the one who made me leave him in the first place by pulling me through the mirror of yours!"

The minute Emma closed her mouth, she regretted speaking. Regina's eyes flared so violently with anger that Emma began to wonder if it was only Maleficient that could turn into a dragon. But Regina didn't turn into a dragon. No, instead, she purposefully flicked her hand and within seconds Emma was transported into Regina's personal dungeon.

It was old and even more abandoned than it had been designed to look since no one had been in it for twenty-eight years. Emma suddenly appeared inside the prison behind thick metal bars. She looked around her unsurely as she acclimated to her strange surroundings.

The ground was made of packed dirt; some straw pieces lay haphazardly on top of it. The walls were made rough stone, with more jagged edges and unsanded surfaces than the ones that made up the rest of the castle. Emma leaned forward toward the bars and wrapped her fingers around them. She stared into the hallway into the dungeon and waited. Within a few seconds Regina appeared in front of her wrapped in a puff of smoke.

"And here I thought you'd never come," Emma sighed out. Regina walked towards Emma's cell smugly, her head wobbling in a way that seemed to intimidate even further. At least, that's what it usually did, but instead of Emma shrinking in fear as Regina advanced closer and closer still, she only rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry, dear. I always come by and make sure my animals are in their proper cages." Regina spat. She knew she was going overboard. She always did. But the second Emma blamed Henry's vulnerability on her, she lost all grasp on right and wrong. It all seemed to blur together in a mindless whirl.

"Animal, huh?" Emma snorted, "Well that's new." It was Emma's tone of voice that made Regina pause. She looked curiously at the blonde and tilted her head to the side as her forehead wrinkled. Emma didn't seem afraid at all. She knew the woman was foolish, she had already demonstrated that earlier with the metal torch, but there was something off here. There was no possible explanation that she should be so calm, so sure of herself.

"Yes, animal. That's all you are, and that's all you will stay."

"What are you going to do, leave me here forever?"

"That's precisely what I plan on doing."

"And what will Henry think about that?" Emma rose her eyebrows in question. She watched Regina's face fall.

"Henry will-" Regina stopped and clamped her mouth shut. She opened it a moment later, "he will-" but stopped again.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Now let me out and we can both work on how to get him back." Emma's complete disregard for the threat Regina held was driving the brunette so mad her blood was boiling.

"I don't think you understand, Miss Swan. This is my turf. As long as we're here I have power over you. I can rip your heart out with one tug, snap your neck with one twitch of my hand."

Emma stared into Regina's eyes. They held as much sadness as her words held anger. She decided it was time. Whether she liked it or not, it was time for her to tell the truth.

"Cut the crap, Regina. You're not the Evil Queen. You're Henry's mother. You're stubborn and brash and you jump to conclusions. You barely let anyone see inside of you because you're scared to death they might label you as irredeemable. You are the single most infuriating person I've ever met and despite all that, I still, every single time, I still end up …" Emma trailed off into a mumble that Regina couldn't make out.

Apparently Emma's monologue had stirred up something inside of her because she now paced her cell and growled in frustration as she continued to mumble to herself, kicking the metal bars once when her anger became too much. The whole time Regina remained still, staring confusedly at the blonde. .

It took a couple of more kicks before Emma calmed down and returned to the bars, her hands gripping around their usual spot. For a few seconds there was silence, until Regina finally found the words trapped in her throat.

"You always end up what?"

Emma looked up from her head's downturned state. Regina could see a debate going on in her eyes and she wondered if the truth would win out.

"I always end up falling in love with you no matter how many times I do it," Emma said quietly. Regina scoffed and took a few steps back.

"Falling in love with me?" she asked incredulously, as if it were the most impossible thing she'd ever heard of.

"Yeah."

"But that's impossible. That's absolutely ridiculous!" Regina laughed coldly to herself before turning back to Emma for confirmation that she was right, that the idea was impossible. But Emma just looked at her with her lips turned downward, no amusement whatsoever on her face.

"I used to think so too."

"I don't understand." Regina's mocking attitude decreased exponentially when Emma remained serious about her allegation.

"Regina. This isn't the first time we've gone through this," Emma said, "though it is the first time you've actually thrown me in your dungeon. But I guess that was my own fault."

"What? What do you mean?" Regina's eyes raised up on her forehead and she stepped forward.

"Pan's curse didn't stop at the town lines. It did something to me, maybe to Henry too, I don't know."

"It didn't do anything. I saw it stop at the town line. I stopped it." Regina's eyes darted from one of Emma's eyes to the other in search of understanding.

"I don't know what it did. I don't know. All I know is that I've lived this day and a couple more over and over and over. Time after time. And every fucking time it ends the same way."

"No. This is the first time I've seen you since that day we said goodbye," Regina said.

"No, it's not. I mean maybe this is the first time you remember, but I've seen you at least thirty different times. Each time it's a little different, but mostly the same."

Regina latched her hands onto the bars of the dungeon and squeezed tight. Emma's allegations weren't far from believable. After all, she lived in a magical world, herself being the Evil Queen, but she'd always figured she was immune to acts of dark magic such as this. And to think she was in… a time loop? Was she really stuck in a time loop? Or maybe it wasn't that at all. Maybe Emma was one tricking her, the source of dark magic. But how could she trust that the blonde woman before her was really Emma? It could be Pan. Or Rumplestilskin. Or maybe Emma didn't even exist. Was she going crazy? Was she already crazy?

Regina slipped deeper and deeper into self-doubt and despair with each coming second and Emma watched it all happen. She watched the color drain out of Regina's face, her eyes grow distant, small creases that never existed before appear in her face. In an effort to comfort her, Emma placed her hand softly over Regina's on the bars, but Regina jerked her hand away as if she were burned, unsettled beyond belief by the contact.

Emma spoke suddenly and self-consciously, "I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget I have to start over each time." Emma looked down at her feet, scuffing her boot in the dirt.

Regina was overwhelmed to say the least. Emma had tried to touch her, to comfort her. She had acted as though she cared about how Regina felt. That, in addition to the whole idea that everything she believed the be real was not, had her head pounding.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Regina asked, her eyes narrowing in accusation.

Emma looked up from the ground, and for the first time since Regina had seen her, she had a tiny smile on her face.

"I actually figured this one out a couple times back just in case I ever got the nerve to tell you the truth."

"So what is it?" Regina asked humorlessly.

"Your name is Regina Mills-"

"Yes, thank you. I think I know my own name."

Emma smile only grew, "let me finish."

She took a deep breath, "Your name is Regina Mills. You have counted down every single day since you said goodbye to Henry and I at the town line, just before you pulled me through the mirror you squeezed your necklace so hard your hand bled. You didn't do it because you wanted to hurt yourself though, like Snow thought. You did it to remind yourself that you still existed, that you weren't a shadow of person, like you think you are.

You don't know who you are, and that goes farther than being confused about what wardrobe you should pick from. You've forgotten what food you like, what smell you look forward to, what it feels like to be touched. You've forgotten what people are supposed to do when they aren't busy plotting revenge. You've even forgotten how to hate Snow White," at that, Regina's face dropped. There was no way she would ever admit that to anyone, especially not Emma Swan.

"And that's how I know you'll believe me," Emma said, "Because the only reason you would tell anyone that was if you were certifiably out of your mind."

"That's correct. I wouldn't tell that to anyone unless I was insane, because its not true," Regina hmphed confidently, but inside, her mind was spinning. How did Emma know that? How could Emma possibly know that? She had trouble admitting that even to herself.

"But you told me that one time. You did. And you know why Regina? Because every time I relive this loop, every time I fall in love with you, you fall in love with me, too," Emma's voice got quiet, "whether you like it or not, you do."

Regina didn't know what to say. She couldn't believe what Emma was telling her. If she did, then her whole world got a million times more complex. If she did, then that meant she was opening her mind to believe that it was possible that she and Emma could fall in love. And after all Emma had told her time loop included, that was the thing that she couldn't get past.

Her and Emma falling in love.

Her and Emma in love.

Her and Emma.

No. No. It couldn't be possible. Emma could see Regina slipping away and made one last ditch attempt to convince her of the truth.

"The last time I saw you, you told me that the entire sky could fall away and you wouldn't care as long as we were together."

And that was moment Regina was done making excuses. She knew there was no possible explanation for the words Emma had just said to her other than the fact that she had, at one point, whether she liked it or not, been in love with the blonde. Because those words were more sacred to her than anything in the the whole world.

Those exact words used to come out her father lips at least once a week when they were young. For whenever Regina was upset about Cora's treatment of her, she would curl up in her bed and wait for her father to comfort her. She would cry and cry and say, "daddy why won't she stop? She's so awful. You're not going to leave, are you? You're not going to leave me alone with her, right?" and he would respond by stroking her hair softly and whispering the words that Emma had just said, "the entire sky could fall away Regina, and I wouldn't care as long as we are together."

Emma waited for Regina to soak up the information she had just thrown at her and begged internally that the brunette woman would believe her. She had to, because she was out of ideas and she was desperate.

She couldn't keep living this repeat loop. She couldn't keep falling in love with Regina only for her to forget everything they'd gone through the next time she flew through that mirror. And god, the worst of all, she couldn't keep going through the action that caused the time loop to end. She just couldn't do it.

Regina lifted her head to Emma's and looked in those gleaming jade eyes and for whatever reason, decided to believe her. There was just one thing that remained unknown, though. One thing that didn't make sense.

"Each time you see me," Regina began, "each time you come through that mirror and we…f- fall in love," she stuttered, it felt strange on her tongue still.

"Yes?"

"It ends?"

"It does. And then the next minute I know I'm flying through the mirror again."

Regina thought about that for a second, how mentally draining it must be for Emma not only to be flung from time to time in a continuous loop, but also to have to deal with her anger on a 24/7 basis. It was strange; thinking about her attitude might affect others.

"Do you sleep?"

"Only when I'm in a loop. Never in between."

"How long do they last?"

"Depends on how far we get before it ends. Days, sometimes a couple weeks."

And all of the sudden, Regina realized the reason Emma's eyes held so much sadness when she was in her magical imprisonment just an hour before.

"You haven't seen Henry for as long as I have…"

Emma bit her lip and Regina could see the tears welling up behind her eyes. The blonde shook her head from side to side.

"No," she whispered out in a hoarse voice. Regina nodded in understanding and felt her own tears sting the backs of her eyes.

She allowed the idea that someone understood and was struggling with the separation as much as she was settle on her. It felt like comfort.

Regina had never had someone to lean on in tough times and she began to wonder if Emma was about to be that woman for her. Her heart relaxed from the previously constricted state it had been in for eighty-two days... until a small detail stood out in her head. A teeny tiny detail that would flip her world in its axis. Something that Emma had been purposefully avoiding during her explanation of the time loop they were currently in.

"How do they end?"

"What?" Emma looked startled, and also a little…terrified.

"How does each time loop end? What happens to make them start over?" Regina asked again.

"I'm not sure you're ready to…"

"Tell me."

"Regina, I-"

Regina felt a deep sense of dread settle on her heart. Her voice became gravely with emotion, but she pressed on.

"Tell me!" She yelled in complete fear of what Emma was about to say. Emma looked at Regina, really looked at her. She remembered the first time she touched her lips. The first time she felt her skin. The first time Regina allowed her to wrap her body around her own in comfort.

"Please tell me how it ends." Regina was pleading now.

She couldn't let her go again, Emma decided. It was time to end it. It was time to get out of the loop.

So with a deep breath and a quick moistening of her cracked lips, she said the thing that she knew would change the course of the current loop off track from any other one she'd lived through.

"You die. We try to get Henry back. We try so hard, but every single time, you die. And the next thing I know, I'm landing on your floor and you're alive. You're glaring at me and you hate me , but you're alive. That's why I never told you before. You always came back. I'd watch you die," Emma's tears were streaming down her face in painful memory, her voice cracking on ever other word, "I'd feel my heart breaking inside of me as you slipped away, only for you to appear in front of me seconds later, without any memory of what had happened.

And each time I'd want to tell you about the loop, I wanted to tell you that I knew you were going to bump into that table, or accidentally trip on that root. I knew you felt more lonely than you let on and cried when I wasn't looking, but I couldn't tell you because I didn't want to mess it up. I didn't want to change something so much that there was the chance you wouldn't come back. Because if you didn't come back, and I was stuck in this loop all alone, I don't know if I'd be able to go on. I don't think..." Emma looked down at her feet and Regina could see the blotches of moisture landing on the floor.

Regina's mouth went dry. Her throat felt like it was made of sand. She stared at the blonde woman that was weeping over the thought of her death. It was almost too much to bear, until she thought of the alternative. She thought of her armoire, her zoned out eyes, her isolation. She couldn't go back to that.

"What's going to happen now?" Regina asked as she felt her life crumbling beneath her.

Emma looked up, her tears creating tracks upon her cheeks in the dust that had gathered there from the dungeon, "I have no idea."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hiya! Hope you enjoy this chapter :)**

* * *

><p>Shards of glass erupted from the point on the wall where Regina had hurled a vase just seconds earlier. The large puzzle piece sized shapes fell right along the crease where the stone floor met the stone wall, but the smaller pebbles of glass seemed to cover the entire side of the room, even going as far to skirt along the floor and onto the toe of Emma's boot.<p>

It was only a brief period of time before another small grunt of frustration as well as the sound of another glass vase went flying into the wall sounded in the room. Regina watched the explosion of glass settle and clenched her fists tightly.

After being transported back to her bedroom, Emma had begun to explain how the time loop usually went. She'd only gotten a few minutes into her story though before Regina was so overwhelmed with the fated failure coming her way that she grabbed the first thing she could and threw it at the wall. That thing happened to be a plate.

At the satisfaction of the first plate shattering, she reached for another, and another. She couldn't stop, she'd gone from ceramic plates, to glass cups, and now vases: delicate, beautiful, prized glass vases. Yet she couldn't find it within herself to care at the value that was quickly becoming obsolete as she threw each and every last one into the unforgiving stone.

Emma leaned against the table that had been supplying Regina's destructive mission for the last half an hour. She lifted up the next vase in Regina's vicinity and placed it in the brunette's open hand that extended back behind her.

Regina didn't question how the vases got in her hand, for she had her eyes pinned on the invisible target on the wall where the next vase was destined to go. She had assumed that it was her magic moving them from the table into her grip, but this time Emma's hand grazed her own when the vase was placed in it and she jerked her head to look behind her.

"Wh-what are you doing?" She glanced from her hand, to Emma's hand, back to her hand, and eventually up to Emma's eyes. Emma smiled and raised her eyebrows a little.

"You didn't actually think you had this many plates and vases and glasses all conveniently lined up on one table for you to throw, did you?"

Regina glanced at the table and only now noticed that Emma was right. It was as if every fragile, delicate, and breakable thing she owned was stacked all together on this one table.

"You put these here? Why would you give me things to throw?"

Emma chuckled melodiously, "I kind of found out a couple time loops back that you like to throw things when you get frustrated. It never did any harm and seemed to help your frustration, so it kind of became a thing we did every time."

Regina looked back at her hand, which was still holding a fresh, un-cracked vase. She put it down on the table quickly and attempted to pull herself together. She brushed her hair with her fingers and flattened her dress with her palms.

After a clearing of her throat and a speedy magical cleanup of the glass shards on the floor, she turned to Emma and took a deep breath in order to mentally start over.

"Let's keep going. Tell me what else happens."

Emma wrinkled her forehead skeptically, "You sure? There are still at least twenty cups you haven't even touched here."

Regina worked her jaw muscles furiously, just as Madame Mayor would have done and in a clipped tone, she forced out, "Yes, _Emma. _I'm sure. Now tell me how it is exactly we don't get our son back."

Emma rolled her eyes and stood up. She began from the beginning again.

"After I get here and the memory potion and all that stuff, we go back into Rumplestilskin's book and we find a magically hidden page, it's written invisibly or something. We touch the mirror, both of us and somehow we get both of our magic to turn it into a portal. When we see Henry through the mirror we chant the words that are written in the book and-"

"Regina!"

Emma's speech halted to a sudden stop as she and Regina looked toward the direction of the doorway where the shrill voice was coming from.

"Regina!" It was coming out from the hallway. Someone was knocking on Regina's door and calling for her.

After the second knock, Regina's face drained in recognition. She looked from the door and Emma. Back at the door, and then back at Emma, all the while her face becoming paler and paler.

"Get in the closet! Get in!" Regina shouted as she herded the blonde toward an edge of the room. Regina pushed Emma forcefully into the stand alone wardrobe that housed her decorated and elaborate dresses.

Emma climbed in the dresser willingly, but chuckled quietly to herself. She knew something strange was about to happen. It always did at this point. Sometimes someone would come in to bring her food and she would flip out and get all aggravated, or a servant would come and speak so informally to Regina that Emma was able to tease her at her relaxed she'd become as queen, or a little kid woud-

"Oh Regina, I was just getting worried. I hadn't heard from you since I gave you the book."

Emma snapped back to reality and pinned her ear against the closed door or the wardrobe. Was that…her mother? Coming to check on Regina?

"Yes Snow. I'm fine. I'm just very tired from reading is all"

At the sound of Regina's voice, Emma pushed her ear even harder against the wood. Her mother was out there conversing with Regina and Regina sounded…pleasant?

"Okay. I'm sorry to disturb you then. Are you still coming to dinner with us?"

"Uh- Well-"

Emma imagined how distracted and flustered Regina must be for her to be stuttering like that, it was so uncharacteristic that for a second, she had doubted that it was even Regina speaking at all.

"We're making your favorite. We'd really like to see you."

"I'll see you at seven then."

In the dark of the closet, Emma shook her head in disbelief. She knew that the time loops changed each time, but never once before had she seen her mother and Regina interact. And Emma especially not been aware that they were…friends? Were they friends?

Before she was able to finish her train of thought, Regina was yanked open the door of the wardrobe. Because of her compromising position with her ear against the door, Emma tumbled out and onto the floor, looking up from the ground at Regina's disapproving face. She picked herself off the ground and wiped the dust off her clothes all while smiling widely at the scowling brunette.

"You, Evil Queen Regina, are friends with my mother, Snow White?"

"We aren't friends," Regina snapped as she walked over to retrieve the leather bound book of dark magic.

"You sure sounded like friends…" Emma pushed. She followed Regina and even had the audacity to poke Regina's shoulder in a joking way. At first, Regina remained still, her back to Emma. Emma took it as encouragement to go on.

"See! Here I thought you were going to be terrorizing my mother with magic spells and poison apples when really you guys are having dinner parties and sharing books! I mean you're practically B.F.F…" Emma trailed off from her gleeful rant as she saw Regina's shoulders begin to tremble. The blonde took a step closer, but Regina only rounded her back more in an effort to conceal her face.

Emma moved around Regina until she was standing in front of her. The previous Evil Queen's face was tracked with tears, her chest rose and fell haphazardly as soft sobs spilled out of her. Emma reached a soft, but sturdy hand toward Regina's chin, the pad of her thumb grazing along her jaw line. Regina allowed the comfort of touch for a fraction of a second before realizing what was happening. Her eyes opened wide and she jerked her head away from Emma. At the unpleasant and harsh reality of the response, Emma's lips pursued together as her hand fell limply back down to her side.

"I'm sorry," Emma whispered.

"You don't think I want to be powerful and respected as I used to be? You don't think I want everyone in the entire castle to fear me as they used to?"

Emma looked at Regina's red eyes and felt a stabbing pain in her heart.

"No. I don't think you do," the blonde finally said.

Regina lifted her eyes and Emma could practically see her grasping at straws to keep up the façade she had carefully constructed for most of her life.

"Well, you're wrong I do. I wish I could take each and every heart in this castle. I wish I could just kill off guards like they are nothing. I wish everyone feared my very presence," Regina adverted her eyes to the ground, "but my magic is just too weak now, that's all."

Emma took a careful step toward Regina and waited until their eyes met once again. "I don't believe that. I think you could still do all those things if you wanted to…you're just different now."

"Different," Regina snarled, "the only thing different about me is how pathetic I am."

Cautiously, Emma lifted her hand to place on Regina's arm. When she felt the contact, Regina whipped her head to the side and stared at the place where the savior's hand met the Evil Queen's arm. For a second, Emma thought that she was going to insist she remove it, but instead, Regina relaxed and turned her gaze back to the ground.

"I'm useless. I can't even force myself to punish the idiotic servant that keeps serving me liver. How many times do I have to tell him I don't like liver. I should just break his neck. I know I should. But I can't." Regina growled in such a low voice that Emma knew it wasn't meant for her ears. So she said nothing. Instead, she allowed her thumb to graze back and forth along Regina's arms.

"You aren't weak." Emma said quietly. Regina looked up, tears fueled by self-hate forming in her eyes.

"You aren't weak," Emma repeated once more, knowing that she could say it a million times and the woman in front of her still might not believe it.

And she was right. Regina didn't believe it.

But the third time Emma said those three words though, Regina allowed a shred self-defense mechanisms to break down and as a result, a sob ripped out of her throat while her tears began flowing. They streamed down her face and onto her chin, free-falling the far distance down to the floor.

Emma took the opportunity she knew she was subtly being given and wrapped two arms around the brunette in a hug. Regina pressed her face into Emma's chest and allowed the other woman's shirt to soak up her tears. Emma tightened her arms around her, and while the hug was awkward, stiff, completely unfamiliar on Regina's end, it provided the comfort they both needed. It seemed that subconsciously, Regina knew she was destined to end up in Emma's arms.

"She's all I have Emma. I have no one else except you're pathetic, patronizing mother," Regina said as she cried, "She's been so good to me too…but she's just so annoying."

Emma began to chuckle at how typical it was for Regina to slip in an insult to her mother considering the circumstances. Regina soon joined along when she realized what'd she said, her muffled laughs replacing sobs.

The laughing seems just enough to ground her back to reality, because in one quick flash Regina pulled back wiped her face clean of tears. Emma released her arms reluctantly from around the brunette.

While she wanted nothing more than to keep her close, she knew it wasn't time yet.

"Well, now that that's out of the way…" Regina flicked her hand and instantly her makeup and hair was perfect once again, not a thing out of place. Emma sighed, this woman was resilient, she'd give her that. She could have the most meaningful and eye-opening experience with someone one moment, and the next she'd be addressing them by their last name.

Regina looked at Emma expectantly and waved her hand, "continue on with what happens next," as if it was Emma that had interrupted their story. Emma's jaw tumbled open and she looked on incredulously.

"Seriously? You're just going to ignore what just happened like...a second ago?"

"Well you're the one who said she's been through this thirty something times, shouldn't you know I'm going to do just that?"

"I told you it changes every time!" Emma huffed. She constantly alternated between wanting to either strangle or kiss the infuriating brunette standing in front of her. Right now, she was leaning more toward strangle.

...yet again, she did look smoking hot in that plunging v-neck of a dress…

"Any day now Miss Swan," Regina spat as she tapped her foot on floor.

Emma decided it was a tie.

"Fine. So we turn the mirror into a portal and we see Henry. Then we chant the words in the book and he flies through just like I did." Emma stopped, not wanting to continue on. She knew for a fact Regina wasn't going to like it and from the bad mood Regina already appeared to be in, she was afraid what was going to happen when she found out.

"So, what's the problem?" Regina was tapping was her heel on the floor faster now, impatiently waiting for Emma to explain why she had been told that in the end of every loop, they had never gotten Henry back.

"Well…see, the thing is," Emma rubbed the back of her hand on her neck, her heart lurching in her chest as it did every time she thought about how long it had been since she'd seen Henry. The real Henry.

"See, it usually takes us about a week before we even figure out to get Henry to come through the mirror, and I never tell you what we are supposed to do even though I know because I don't want to mess it up and-"

"Miss Swan. You will tell me _right now_ why it is we don't get our son back."

Emma took a deep breath in and pushed it out forcefully. She knew that she couldn't stall any longer, "Henry comes through the mirror at least we think it's him. But it's not." Regina stared at Emma in silence, her forehead wrinkling. After awhile she finally spoke.

"Who is it then?

Emma bit the bottom of her lip nervously. "It's Pan."

"I don't understand," Regina began slowly, trying desperately to put the missing pieces of information together. Emma wrung her hands together; her face felt like it was on fire.

"Henry comes through and I'm so happy. I'm just so incredibly happy, but he doesn't remember you because of the curse so we give him the memory potion to he can remember you," Emma tapered off yet agin because what happens next practically rips her apart every time she goes through it.

"Go on…" Regina encouraged, but her voice is soft now. She understood Emma's previous hesitation and even though she needs to know what happens, she's not so sure she wants to know anymore either.

"He drinks the memory potion and seconds later, every single time, he morphs back into who he really is. Pan."

"How can he be both Pan and Henry?" Regina asked robotically. It seemed she'd blocked out her emotional attachment to the issue and is ready to attack the problem as if it were a complex mathematics proof.

"Pan switched bodies with Henry at some point before he died. It had always been since that moment, but when we were passing over the town line, you gave us both memories of Henry and my life together, so Pan thought he was Henry. When he comes through the mirror, he still thinks he's Henry, until the memory potion. When we have him drink that, he remembers who he really is and changes back."

Regina looked like she just got punched in the stomach and Emma can sympathize with her because she's felt that way thirty times.

"Is that where it ends?" Regina asked from a gravely and cracked voice.

Emma nodded, "Pan sees one look and decides that he's done playing games. He told us during one loop that he needed to go kill Rumplestilskin and we'd just get in the way. But every time, he looks at us, and his gaze lingers on you." Emma looked piercingly into Regina's brown eyes, "he nods once. And you just go down. You collapse right onto the ground and I can never figure out what he did to you, or how to reverse it...and then you die."

Regina grit her teeth together in frustration at being duped by Pan once again. She felt the magic within her whipping at a furied pace as her anger built inside of her, already struggling to keep it in control. Her eyes flickered with the electricity bubbling beneath her skin and she grasped onto the nearest surface to calm herself.

When Emma saw Regina being affected by the dark magic inside of her, she instinctively grabbed her hands, interlacing their fingers together. The second their palms touch, Regina felt the wrath and darkness seep out of her. She could physically feel herself losing her frustration, gaining control.

It's then that she realized that however calm she looked, Emma was the opposite. She watched as Emma's face vibrating in pain, the muscles in her arms flexing in an effort to keep still.

It instilled a worry in Regina that she didn't know was possible, but instead of doing something about it, she just remains still. She feels so light and carefree that she can't get herself to focus. It's only when a spark catches her eye that she realized the reason she feels like she's floating in the sky was a result of whatever it is Emma's doing to her.

Regina wanted to let go, she wanted to stop whatever was happening between them because Emma looked as if she might explode at any moment. The blonde's hair stuck up with static electricity, her irises had turned green and her skin had eerie glow to it, but Regina felt like she'd just taken an entire bottle of painkillers and the only thought at the forefront of her mind is wonderful she feels.

When another spark vibrated from their hands though, Regina forced her hands to retract, pulling so hard away from Emma that they both went tumbling back onto the ground. Without the bridge of contact between them, Emma's eyes, hair, and skin slowly returned back to normal and Regina's cotton candy, drug-like, flying feelings started to diminish.

"What the hell was that?" The brunette says once she's gained some control over her body once again.

"Aghhhh," Emma groaned as she rubbed her head. She tried to stand, but she's obviously weak. Reluctantly, Regina went over and helps her get up, stumbling with her until Emma falls on Regina's bed in exhaustion.

"You taught me how to do that once," Emma mumbled out as she closes her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of how soft Regina's bed is.

"I taught you magic transfer?" Regina raised her eyebrows at that. Magic transfer is a highly sought out skill in the Enchanted Forest and the chances of her teaching it to Emma were very unlikely; in addition to it being a prized skill, it was just straight out dangerous, as evidenced by Emma's attempt.

It was extremely difficult to stop once it began and if the connection between them had never ceased Emma would have most likely died from the immense amount of dark magic that had funneled through her body.

Emma opened her eyes after she didn't hear Regina respond and saw how shocked the brunette looked.

"You must have liked me a lot, huh?" She said as her lids drifted closed again, a small smile on her face.

"What was that?" Regina said as she snapped out of her thoughts, only catching the tail end of what Emma said.

"I said, you must have like me a lot, huh?"

Regina mapped the lines of Emma's face as they relaxed one by one. She didn't think she'd ever seen the blonde look so calm before.

"I suppose I must have," she whispered so quietly that she, herself, could barely hear it.


End file.
